I want to take a moment to talk about something that has been extremely important to me. As you might be able to tell from the title, it is about the importance of setting a schedule and sticking to it.
The reason that I have found a schedule so wonderful is that it honestly is liberating. It has been one of the toughest things in life for me to schedule gigs and lessons and events etc. This has actually lost me gigs and connections. I didn't respond fast enough, not because I missed the note, but because I simply did not want to schedule that far in advance. I was afraid I would say yes to one thing and miss out on something else that would be "better". As you can probably tell....
THIS IS NOT A WAY TO LIVE A FREELANCING LIFE.
in fact, it has definitely burned me and kept me from being a freelancer like I so desire. Luckily, I am on my way to growing into freelancing and teaching. Honestly though, what has really pushed me to do this has been saying yes to gigs and SCHEDULING them.
I don't have a lot of gigs booked, but then I do, I said yes to and then put them in my calander.
There is however, a next step to scheduling.
I have been working on scheduling my day to day. I utilize a to do list. The first thing I do is set achievable to dos for my day and throughout the day I check them off as I complete them. Do I always accomplish all the to dos?
Absolutely not. I'm not perfect...
But, having an achievable goal helps me feel accomplished in my day to day.
Here is an example of one of my to do Lists.
- Snare Drum Warm Ups
- Practice Delecluse 1
- Marimba Warm Ups
- Clear Email
- Wheaton North
- Respond to ______
- Score Study Kyoto E-G
Etc.
As my day progresses I can check these off and feel concrete accomplishment!
Alright... Now.... This blog is called Disabilities and Music. So how does these topic relate to that?
First of all, it needs to be said that as a teacher, if we are not in HEALTHY mental spaces than we cannot teach healthily.
Let me say that again. If we as teachers are not healthy, than we cannot teach healthily.
This is extremely important. If we are asking a student to practice 15 minutes a day yet we cannot give 15 minutes of our day to practicing then we need to reevaluate. If we ask our students to get good sleep but we are not getting good sleep than we need to reevaluate. You get the idea.
If, as teachers we can give ourselves a healthy schedule that allows ourselves adequate rest and reflection, than we can have our heads on straight enough to teach well. It has been a long time coming for myself to get a little more structure in my life. and I can say this it has increased my mood and my energy levels drastically. With that said, I can approach lessons with a better mood, and more energy. This means I can have successful lessons! What's better than that?
the next reason this topic is so important is actually for inside the class/lesson room. Some people call them lesson plans, but I prefer to call them schedules. The reason I implement schedules is because it takes the weekly pressure of what will the lesson look like off of my shoulders. I can than work with the student in a pressure free situation! Alongside this, in the Special Needs community I have been told time and time again that their daily (yes. DAILY) schedule is one of the most important aspects of their lives. This schedule creates stability in their lives. Stability that is so important when one thing going wrong could create "instability" For those wondering what my scheduled lessons look like. here is a draft of a typical lesson schedule.
- Bow
- Review and Practice
- Play Together
- New Music
- Homework
- Bow
- Break (used whenever needed)
The student and I are collaborating throughout the lesson in the form of this schedule. we start with a bow. after that we review what happened last week. we did we work on in our lesson? did it go well over the week? what have we been working on since we started? etc. This means that I am constantly going back to concepts around technique.
"Are we holding the sticks correctly?"
"Are we using our wrists?"
"Are our fingers wrapped around the stick?"
Etc.
What is better than a teaching technique that helps us teach more techniques? Nothing...
Hopefully it is clear how having a schedule for life and lessons is a good idea.
Now everyone go make some schedules!
Noel
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